Visual Arts News from the Vancouver Art Gallery Library, May 14, 2014

Vancouver Art Gallery advocate pushes forward with $300-million dream. “You could make the argument that hiring an architect to design a museum that may never get built is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse. But then, Kathleen Bartels, director of the existing Vancouver Art Gallery, needs something of a miracle if a new version of the VAG is to rise up on a downtown site donated by the city. And she’s no doubt hoping that hiring a renowned architectural firm, and offering the public a rendering of what this flashy arts centre might look like, will produce some fresh momentum for the project and attract much-needed funding.” Globe & Mail, May 13, 2014

Art this week: Adad Hannah and more. Vancouver’s Adad Hannah has made his mark creating lavish tableaux vivant — literally “living pictures” — captured in both moving and still imagery, and often replicating famous artworks. Vancouver Sun, May 14, 2014

Victoria

Robert Amos: Virtuoso drawings and pure design. Whether it was Toronto the Good, or simply Hogtown, from the 1950s onward, Harold Town (1924-1990) was unquestionably the premier artist of that city. Iris Nowell has written that his “prodigious output of prints, drawings, sculpture and paintings garnered for him more publicity than all other Canadian artists combined.” The current show in Victoria might be a revelation to local art lovers. Times Colonist, May 13, 2014

Terrace

Calling all carvers: Help create a totem pole tribute (photos). Joe Mandur is inviting experienced and amateur artists to join him and 2,998 others in carving a pole he’ll dedicate to teacher and artist Freda Diesing. Photographer John Lehmann paid him a visit recently to check in on his progress. Globe & Mail, May 13, 2014

Toronto

Canada’s Douglas Cardinal: an architect’s legacy. He was a superstar of Canadian architecture in the 1980s and early 1990s, creator of the iconic, curvilinear Canadian Museum of Civilization (renamed the Canadian Museum of History last year) and a household name. Now 80, Douglas Cardinal is still designing buildings, though the big commissions have dried up. Cardinal, who was recently chosen to design a native healing centre on Toronto’s West Don Lands — his very first Toronto commission — is intent on creating beauty for years to come. Toronto Star, May 9, 2014

Ottawa

Pushing back against the National Gallery of Canada ‘bully. Gerald Beaulieu describes himself as a “fairly successful mid-career artist.” The P.E.I. sculptor has had more than 70 solo and group exhibitions across Canada, the U.S. and Europe in the past 25 years. Even so, like most artists in Canada, he has a day job, working seasonally as a home renovator. Some years, he can make a living from his art. But other years, he earns something closer to the $8,000 median income for artists in this country. Ottawa Citizen, May 13, 2014

Holocaust Monument in Ottawa corrects 70-year mistake. As announced by the federal government on Monday, the winning proposal for the National Holocaust Monument came from a dazzling team led by Gail Dexter Lord, co-president of Toronto consulting firm Lord Cultural Resources. Ottawa Citizen, May 14, 2014

Burtynsky & Libeskind to Create Canada’s Holocaust Monument. Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky and American architect Daniel Libeskind are part of a team that will create Canada’s first official National Holocaust Monument. The monument is due to be opened to the public in Ottawa in the fall of 2015. Canadian Art, May 13, 2014

Montreal

Canadian Photographer Lynne Cohen Dies at 69. Canadian photographer Lynne Cohen, known for exacting and penetrating images of human environments, has died following an extended battle with lung cancer. Cohen, based in Montreal, was originally diagnosed with cancer some three years ago, around the same time she won the inaugural $50,000 Scotiabank Photography Award. Canadian Art, May 13, 2014

Detroit

Detroit, From Both Sides of the Coin Bill Rauhauser spent much of his life taking pictures as a hobby while working as an engineer in Detroit. But those twin tugs gave his work a range and balance few can match. New York Times, May 14, 2014

New York

Looking at the Ordinary and Extraordinary Life of Andy Warhol. There are few eras more romanticized than the reign of Andy Warhol and the Factory on the New York art and social scene in the 1960s, ’70s and part of the ’80s. Steven Kasher Gallery currently has on view an exhibition of Bob Colacello’s insider photographs of Warhol during the 1970s and ’80s titled “Bob Colacello: Holy Terror, Photographs from Inside Warhol’s World. Slate Magazine, May 11, 2014

Paris’s Picasso Controversies “One centers on the Paris Picasso Museum, where renovations have dragged for five years amid accusations of mismanagement, labor problems and clashes between the artist’s family and the French government. The other is about the fate of a Left Bank studio where Picasso lived and worked for 19 years, and painted his famed anti-war opus “Guernica” in 1937.” Yahoo, May 14, 2014

France Fires President Of Picasso Museum The French government dismissed the embattled president of the Musée Picasso on Tuesday amid an employee revolt and a bitter debate over delays in reopening the museum, which has been closed for renovation for almost five years.” New York Times, May 14, 2014

Unedited History: Iran 1960-2014, from Friday, 16 May in Paris The curators of the ambitious exhibition “Unedited History: Iran 1960-2014” say that the show will break new ground in the study of Middle Eastern art. “This is the first exhibition on this institutional scale focusing on Iranian art from 1960 to today. The Art Newspaper, May 14, 2014

Berlin

Peter Wilde’s Berlin Spring: A Midlife Art Manifesto. Canadian-German artist Peter Wilde in Berlin with his new series of Pope Francis paintings. On reviving his painting career in his 40s, Wilde says, “Everybody in the Canadian art world wants young, young, new, new, young, younger. I was told outright, ‘It’s too late for you.” So I left Canada and came to Berlin, where people don’t care about my age.” Canadian Art, May 13, 2014